'The bare facts, of course without names, without details. He would take nothing for the original drawing—Lydia has it—and nothing for this copy which he made me. He said I had done him a great kindness.'
'Oh, if one could be a man like that!'
The words answered to his thoughts, yet implied something more than their plain meaning. They uttered more than one regret, more than one aspiration.
'Let me take it, Walter.'
'One moment!—This was Thyrza?'
'Let me take it.'
'Tell me—has Miss Newthorpe seen it?'
'Yes.'
Mrs. Ormonde bore the picture away. In a few minutes Egremont took his leave, and went to the hotel to which he had sent his travelling-bag from Brighton. It was long before he slept. He was thinking of a night a little more than a year ago, when he had walked by the shore and held debate with himself....
On the following evening, shortly before sunset, Annabel and he walked on the short dry grass of the Down that rises to Beachy Head. There had been another day of supreme tranquillity, of blurred sunshine, of soothing autumnal warmth. And this was the crowning hour. The mist had drifted from the land and the sea; as the two continued their ascent, the view became lovelier. They regarded it, but spoke of other things.